Although Named patterns are available in 8 sizes,
you can only buy them in two sizes at a time. Admittedly, this is
tricky if your measurements span over a number of sizes, but it saves
heaps of time when it comes to printing and tracing off.

The good news is
that the Dakota Dress isn't close fitting through the waist - you cinch it in
with a belt instead - so I recommend choosing your size according to
your bust measurement. Once you get the bust right, the waist and hips
are relatively easy to adjust.

PDF Printing

Like with any PDF
pattern, the Dakota Dress needs to be printed at 100%, disabling
scaling. There's a 3” test square included in the pattern, so to
save paper and ink, I suggest just printing that page off first until
you get it right. A helpful reader has also sent in the following
advice:

“When it
comes up later in the sewalong please remind the North American
sew-alongers that Named patterns will not print correctly on US
Letter sized paper - it is too large and parts will be cut off. A
solution is to take it to a print shop and have it printed on US
Legal sized paper for 10 cents each, thus $1.50 total - it should fit
perfectly then. Unfortunately home printers often don't accommodate
for the wider legal/A4 paper, even if you do someone get your hands
on it. (A ream at staples for A4 paper is 10$!)”

At this point, it would be great if you
could also print off this pattern piece for a sleeve placket, because Rachel will be using the Threads Magazine method for this part of the sewalong. It's just one page and you print it in
exactly the same way as above.

PDF Assembling

Because Named patterns only come in two
sizes at a time, there's only 15 pages to print off for your Dakota
Dress – not bad for a long-sleeved dress eh!?!

Each bottom right hand corner is
labelled and numbered, making assembly super easy. Also, if you cut
off one long and one short border of each sheet (the same sides for
each sheet) the process will be much faster too.

I found it easiest taping all my horizontal sheets first – these are made up of three sheets each and a total of five rows – then I taped the rows together and voila!

PDF Tracing

You'll notice that your Dakota pattern
pieces are overlapped, very much like Burdastyle patterns are
presented.

This is terrible news for someone like me who'll avoid tracing at all costs, but let's keep positive and remember how
fast printing and assembling this baby was! Plus, there's only two
sizes to chose from, so deciphering each pattern piece isn't too
hard. Named make it even easier by drawing the smaller size in black
and the larger size in grey.

Don't be confused by the double lines
for each size – the outer line denotes the cutting line and the
inner line helpfully denotes the 1 cm seam allowance, which you can
chose to ignore or trace off and transfer onto your fabric to make
sewing super easy. If this is already sounding confusing, why not go
over either of the lines in a different colour pen before tracing
your pattern pieces?

I'm sure you'll all have your preferred
method for tracing, but I like to keep it cheap and simple. I use
baking paper (beware of the greaseproof stuff as it doesn't like
marker/felt tip pens very much) and tinned food as weights. Make sure
you trace off all markings (notches, fold lines, darts and dart
centre lines, etc) and label your pattern pieces to eliminate
head-scratching moments later on.

Something important to note: As of today (12 November 2013) you can ignore the following as the lovely Named girls have amended their pattern. However, if you have an older copy of the Dakota, note that the skirt pattern pieces are labelled incorrectly. Skirt front and skirt front side are the wrong way around and the same goes for the back pieces. It's not a huge problem, but something to be aware of.

Extra Tip

At this point, it's a good idea to add
a few more notches to help you at the sewing stage. Although the
front and back of the sleeve is easily determined by the placket
placement, to help you in the heat of the sleeve-setting moment, I
would add a second notch to the back sleeve head and the back
armhole. I've shown the existing notches in black and added the new
ones in red so you can see what I mean.

I also added some more notches to the
skirt pieces as it could be daunting telling the eight pattern pieces
apart! Again, I've shown the existing notches in black and added my
suggested new ones in red.

I hope you've found this post helpful and are excited to crack on with your Dakotas...any questions just shout. Rachel and I will do our best to get back to you asap!

10 comments:

Anyone without access to A4 paper can also chose "tile large pages" from the acrobat print screen, just keep scaling at 100%. This uses twice as much paper but allowed me to print as soon as I received my email.

The second notch idea was indeed helpful - i'll be grateful for it when I start sewing it together. I also liked the idea of tracing the lines on the pattern in color before actually tracing the pattern as the gray and black lines were too subtle for me. I didn't have an issue with the pattern pieces being mislabeled, but then I'm using the size 42/44 patterns so it might not be the same as yours.

Now, in terms of sizing, keep in mind that the Dakota dress isn't supposed to be fitted at the waist. Saying that though, I'm making a size 40 which is very close to my measurements and apart from my minor alterations here (http://bit.ly/1hC6Eb2) I'm finding it a great fit. I don't think there's a lot of ease in it, because the waist isn't massive, but it will allow me to comfortably wear something underneath etc. Does this help?

Hi Marie! I was reading your post, and about the skirt pattern pieces being named incorrectly - I checked right away, and oh no, you were right! I have corrected them now, our apologies to everyone who this might have confused! Anyways, if you are ordering as of now, the pattern pieces will be labeled correctly.Thanks for the great sewalong! Keep sewing, Laura / Named